X-Nico

French battleship Strasbourg

The French Navy did not have a dock large enough to build a 35,000 ton hull that was longer than 250m For comparison, the 247m long SS Île de France had been built at the civilian Louis Joubert Lock at Saint-Nazaire.

Louis Joubert Lock

Owned by the Port authority of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire and not the ship building company Chantiers de l'Atlantique, its strategic importance as a major naval construction and maintenance asset since its completion in 1934, resulted in it becoming the main target of the British Army Commando raid of 1942, the St. Nazaire Raid, to stop German battleships such as Tirpitz from accessing maintenance facilities in the Atlantic Ocean.

see also